Archive

India Times – “LONDON: The World Health Organization said on Monday it is too soon to say whether there could be an outbreak of a SARS-like killer respiratory disease after health officials in Britain announced they detected a related virus in a severely ill patient from the Middle East.

British officials alerted WHO on Saturday of the new virus in a man transferred from Qatar for treatment in London. He had recently travelled to Saudi Arabia, where another man died of a similar illness earlier this year.

The man in the new case was sickened by a coronavirus , from a family of viruses which causes most common colds but also includes the virus that causes SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome . In 2003, SARS killed some 800 people, mostly in Asia, in a brief epidemic.

‘It’s still very early days,’ said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman. ‘At the moment we have two sporadic cases and there are still a lot of holes to be filled in.’ Hartl said it was unclear how the virus is spread and there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission. for a history of travel in Saudi Arabia. SARS was first spread to humans from civet cats in China. Hartl said no country has so far reported any similar cases to WHO.

Other experts said it was unclear how dangerous the virus is. ‘We don’t know if this is going to turn into another SARS or if it will disappear into nothing,’ said Michael Osterholm, a flu expert at the University of Minnesota . He said it was crucial to determine the ratio of severe to mild cases.

Like this:

AFP – “Saudi health authorities downplayed Tuesday the impact of a possible outbreak of a virus from the family of deadly SARS on its forthcoming Hajj pilgrimage, stressing that the cases remain rare.

Pilgrims have begun to arrive in Saudi Arabia for the ritual that represents the world’s largest annual gathering as some two million faithful are expected to descend on the Muslim holy city of Mecca for the hajj which peaks in late October.

‘There have been two cases of flu over a period of time. This is normal,’ said health ministry spokesman Khaled al-Mirghalani.

‘There are no changes to the conditions put by the health ministry to pilgrims,’ he said, adding that authorities remain vigilant.

The undersecretary for preventive medicine at the Saudi health ministry, Ziyad Memish, said the ‘virus has been in the kingdom for three months.’

He, however, insisted the situation was ‘stable and no new cases have been recorded.’ Memish said the kingdom is not planning to impose new preventive measures on pilgrims.

The virus has caused the death of a Saudi national and has left a Qatari man in serious conditions at a London hospital, said the World Health Organization (WHO).

The 49-year-old Qatari was admitted to an intensive care unit in Doha on September 7 suffering from acute respiratory infection and kidney failure before being transferred to Britain by air ambulance on September 11, the WHO said.

The WHO confirmed the illness was in the coronavirus family but was not SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which swept out of China in 2003, killing more than 800 people worldwide.” Read more.

Saudi Authorities Detain Nearly 400 Women On Hajj Pilgrimage For Not Having Male Escort – “Nigerian officials say 398 Muslim women pilgrims travelling to Makkah were temporarily held at a Saudi Arabian airport for travelling without male relatives. A spokesman for Nigeria’s National Hajj Commission said Saudi authorities held the Nigerian women between Thursday and Monday at King Abdulaziz Airport in Jeddah. Spokesman Uba Mana said the women were allowed to proceed with their pilgrimage Monday following diplomatic intervention. He said Saudi authorities held them for not travelling with a male relative due to a ‘communication gap’. He said an agreement between the countries exempts Nigerian women from requiring a male relative to escort them during the Hajj pilgrimage, which costs about $4,000 per person.” Read more.

Like this:

Daniel 7:25a, “And he shall speak [great] words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws …”

By Guy Taylor, The Washington Times – “As the U.N. General Assembly convenes this week in New York, several leaders of mostly Muslim nations are suggesting that the world body consider sanctions on blasphemy, amid widespread protests against an amateur movie that denigrates Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he will focus at least part of his remarks on the film when he addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

‘I am the prime minister of a nation, of which most are Muslims, that has declared anti-Semitism a crime against humanity. But the West hasn’t recognized Islamophobia as a crime against humanity. It has encouraged it,’ Mr. Erdogan told reporters last week.

Turkey heads the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a body of 57 nations, which has long pushed for a U.N. resolution condemning the ‘defamation of religion.’

Nonbinding versions of the resolution have been adopted, but the effort was crushed last year by religious groups and human rights activists who argued that it represented a dangerous step toward an international law against free speech.

The debate has been reignited by ‘Innocence of Muslims,’ a crudely produced film made in the United States that has sparked fury in the Muslim world. Protesters have breached the walls at U.S. embassies and desecrated American flags in sometimes violent demonstrations. A protest in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi ended with the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed Monday to Muslims to show ‘dignity’ and not resort to violence as they protest the film, the Associated Press reported.

‘Dignity does not come from avenging insults, especially with violence that can never be justified,’ Mrs. Clinton said at her husband’s Clinton Global Initiative. ‘It comes from taking responsibility and advancing our common humanity.’

In New York on Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad alluded to the film and accused the United States and others of misusing freedom of speech and of failing to speak out against the defamation of people’s beliefs and ‘divine prophets.’

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose country boasts the world’s largest Muslim population, has condemned the film and called on ‘the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the U.N. to mull over international protocol to prevent such things like this from happening again.’

Pakistan’s parliament passed a resolution condemning ‘Innocence of Muslims’ and demanding the nation’s leaders to call on the United Nations to take action against those who made the film…

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi will address the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, and many are waiting to see whether he will echo Mr. Ghaffour’s remarks.” Read more.

Like this:

That explains this video. When any leader of a “free” and “open” society explicitly declares that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam” — in other words, to those who disagree with the “prophet” Mohammed, his religion and any expression thereof — they are directly attacking one of the cornerstones of Western society: freedom. Today, cloaked in a facade of “tolerance”, the President of the United States has himself just deliberately attacked the First Amendment of the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights and the founding principles upon which America was built as a nation, a President who may possibly be brazen enough to push for a law respecting the establishment of a religion. Unfortunately, it is the one that seeks to destroy the whole of Western civilization. If the American people do not put an end to this man’s presidency, we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of America as we know it …

By John Hayward, Human Events – “Barack Obama’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly began with a fine tribute to slain Ambassador Chris Stevens, which is worth reading in full. The New York Timeshas a transcript.

But then the President segued into the circumstances surrounding Stevens’ murder, and things grew… problematic. Obama is still deeply invested in the mythology of a liberating ‘Arab Spring’ spreading from a self-immolating Tunisian street vendor, leading to a captivating transformation by ‘the forces of change.’ He seems almost completely, willfully oblivious to the tawdry reality of political takeovers by Islamist forces, or the future those forces have in mind for their people.

Once again, the childlike fantasy equation of ‘elections = democracy = freedom’ was worked out before a global audience. Too much of the Western political elite still seems incapable of dealing with the idea that certain populations might freely elect oppressive regimes hostile to the civilized world’s interests. It’s not that all such populations are inevitably fated to do so; we seem to be institutionally reluctant to concede that they might do so, and have already cast a few such votes, in rather important places.

Obama offered some rhetorical concessions to the difficulty of managing ‘true democracy’ and ‘real freedom’ beyond simply casting a few votes. ‘Those in power have to resist the temptation to crack down on dissent,’ he explained… right before allowing that it’s understandable they should do so, at least in the matter of offenses to locally popular religious sensibilities.

Listening to Obama speak on these topics often makes me wonder if he really understands what ‘dissent’ means. He’s big on the idea of permissible, carefully controlled ‘dissent,’ operating within strict parameters. His domestic policy is based on the idea that wise government officials can set the parameters of dissent, based on their perception of general public consensus. You’re not allowed to disagree with ObamaCare’s requirements to provide birth control and abortion drugs, no matter what your religious conscience says. If you attempt to dissent from ObamaCare in full, you’ll pay a special ‘tax penalty,’ which has grown to devour over 6 million people. In the early days of Obama’s health care “reform,” his Administration was big on the idea that even verbal disagreement was fundamentally illegitimate, and needed to be controlled by government agencies.

You’re not allowed to dissent from central economic planning – in fact, you must surrender an ever-increasing share of your money, your economic liberty, to support the dictates of Washington. You cannot dissent from the radical environmentalist agenda that has gone a long way toward crippling the American energy industry, transferring billions into absurd ‘green energy’ projects. You cannot escape from any of this, because power has been steadily transferred from state governments you can move away from, to omnipresent Washington. To Obama, the concept of ‘dissent’ is largely limited to infrequent votes in which the public may choose new engineers for the gigantic government machine that controls their lives. Once the votes have been tallied, obedience is required.

Which gets us back to the big issue of the day, and the part of Obama’s U.N. speech that will dominate the headlines: ‘The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.’

Like this:

By Cheradenine Zakalwe – “On Friday night a church in the village of Chassieu in France was vandalised with graffiti reading ‘Islam is growing in power’ and ‘M. Merah’. The town council quickly arranged for the graffiti to be erased. While it is normal for mosque desecrations in France to make national and even international headlines, so far there appear to have been no significant reporting of this event. No politicians have denounced it, declared that it runs contrary to the values of the Republic, promised a massive police operation to catch the perpetrators or harsh punishment for them when found.

The whole thing might have been erased from history had it not been for the initiative of a local nationalist group in taking a photograph of the graffiti and publishing a report about it on its website.

Without reference to this specific incident (which had not occurred then), Marine Le Pen mentioned this curious disparity in treatment in the interview she gave to Le Monde a few days ago:

I’m glad the crime of blasphemy no longer exists. What I find astonishing is the variable geometry of the political class. We are in a country where 95% of the desecrations concern Catholic places of worship or graves and not a single line appears, not one statement from a minister. And as soon as there is a desecration of a mosque or square, immediately, a press statement has to be issued.

Flashback: ‘Soon the Whole World Will Recognize Our Strength and Become Muslim. The Only Ones [who] Will Not Convert to Islam Will be the Jews, and We Will Destroy Them’ – “In the woods a few miles from the entrance to a small town in Dagestan, Abdul-Walid and I struck up a conversation about Islam, during which the Arab persistently pressured me to become a Muslim. He said: ‘We have not yet finished off the Zionists and their allies. Soon the whole world will see what is the reward of Allah.’ ‘They (the Jews) think that money can buy everything, but the Muslims will prove to them that their money is powerless before the retribution of Allah. Money is not protection against suicide bombers, bombs and missiles.’ ‘Jerusalem belongs to the Muslims. And it will be ours even if the whole world will burn in the fire,’ said Abdul-Walid.” Read more.

The Alabama Senate election was about everything except Alabama. And in the end, Alabamans stayed home and let the inevitable turnout tide of passion politics take its course. Minority voters rallied to Obama. Republicans stayed home. And the GOP is now holding on to a bare one-seat Senate majority. The Democrats had abandoned Alabama, along with much of the […]

In Congress (Al Franken, John Conyers), entertainment (Harvey Weinstein, Ben Affleck) and the establishment media (Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose), women are stepping up with charges of sexual harassment, and in some cases powerful men are stepping down. As this unfolds, one key abuser has managed to avoid both the outcry and the scrutiny he deserves. Imran Awan […]

Editor's note: Below are the video and transcript of remarks given by J. Christian Adams at the David Horowitz Freedom Center's 2017 Restoration Weekend. The event was held Nov. 16th-19th at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. J. Christian Adams: I'm going to talk to you today about what's going on at the Justice Department, is the […]

The Trump administration has decided to withdraw from participation in the United Nations Global Compact on Migration, representing another significant departure from the global governance policies of the Obama administration. In September 2016, during the waning days of the Obama administration, the United States had joined with the other member states of t […]

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Reprinted from the Gatestone Institute. One month after Islamic militants bombed two Egyptian churches during Palm Sunday and killed nearly 50 people in April 2017, on Friday, May 26, several SUVs stopped two buses transporting dozens of Christians to visit and pray at the ancient Co […]

In an unprecedented move, President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday, December 6, 2017, that the U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s official capital. In an almost 20-minute speech, President Trump said, “I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” Trump added, “For more than two decades previous presi […]

In the twentieth century, targets were churches and synagogues; today, they are churches, synagogues, mosques, temples -- wherever there is a faith, even a Muslim one, that these Islamic fundamentalists want to "purify". Radical Islam has declared war on

What is genuinely troubling was the way in which Robert Levinson's fate has been kept largely secret. The Iranian authorities have never revealed who captured him, who currently holds him, what charges have been laid against him, or even if he is still

Saudi influence on American administrations, and relationships between senior officials in both countries, is behind Washington's ignoring Riyadh's "well-established... involvement in supporting terrorism and terrorist groups." — Report by the Institute

Every German knows that hardly any asylum seekers whose applications are rejected are forced to leave Germany. But if their application is rejected and they do decide to return to their home country, they are rewarded with an allowance of between €1000

Even if all current 28 EU members, plus Norway and Switzerland, closed their borders to migrants, the Islamic population will continue to exponentiate.... Today, it is an increase of six million in seven years. And tomorrow? What will happen in major

President Trump's announcement Wednesday that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital was both correct and prudent from America's perspective. Much more remains to be done to relocate the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to

The reaction around the world in recent days has been a reminder of the one central truth of the whole conflict. Those who cannot accept that Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel tend to be exactly the same as those who cannot accept the State

ICC Note: The Islamic State is using sick and desperate tactics on the Mosul front line battle. Recent footage published by the group shows militants strapping explosives to a puppy to be sent out to blow up enemy troops. There is no end to what ISIS will do to maintain their land grab. 03/01/2017 Iraq (Christian Post): The Express shared a link to the video […]

ICC Note: The atrocities committed across the Middle East are widespread and extensive, however, it is Christians, Yazidis and other minorities that are facing total annihilation through genocide. It is for this exact reason that religious minorities should get a priority in refugee orders, because they face total genocide in their home countries. 02/24/2017 […]

ICC Note: Another Coptic Egyptian man has been gunned down in Al-Arish by suspected ISIS terrorists. Kamal Youssef, a local plumber and Christian, was shot multiple times in front of his wife and children in his home. This is the sixth Copt killed in the Sinai after the Islamic State in Egypt released a video promising the annihilation of Christians in the n […]